Read Online Ask No Tomorrows by Rita Hestand - Free Book Online Page A

Okay.”
    Sam
frowned.
    Riley was
still wandering about outside, when he called her in.
    He handed her
the one cup he had found.
    “ I
never have figured out why coffee smells so good. Smells heavenly,
aren’t you having any?” she asked, her eyes straying to his
chest.
    “ Yep, half of this.” He nodded to the cup.
    “ Oh…oh, sure.” She sipped a bit and handed it back.
    Sam turned the
cup around and sipped some from the other side then handed it back
to her.
    “ Sit down, we’ll split a can of peaches,” Sam
instructed.
    “ Peaches?” Riley squealed. “You’ve found peaches?”
    “ No, I didn’t find these. Hattie, my sister, packed them for me
before I left. She knew how much I loved them.” Sam smiled and
hunted for something to pick them out with. “Don’t have but a
couple of cans left of them.”
    “ You must have been pretty close to your sister. You talk about
her a lot.”
    “ I
wasn’t but about five when my Ma got kidnapped and my pa was hung.
Hattie, she was like a ma to me after that happened. We was real
close. That is ‘til I got older. After we moved to the Indian
village everyone sorta took me under their wing; I was the only
black boy in the camp.”
    “ You’re lucky. I didn’t have a sister nor a brother. Ma died
when I was pretty young, so dad and I became close I guess you
would say. He just didn’t know how to handle a girl.”
    “ He
learn you ranchin’?” Sam asked.
    “ Mostly him…and some of the hands. Back when I was little we
had lots of hands on the ranch.”
    “ How old are you, Riley?” Sam asked as he hunted for something
to dig the peaches out with.
    Not finding
anything to eat with, he picked up a twig, sharpened it with his
knife and stuck it in one of the peaches and handed it to her.
“Have one.”
    “ Nineteen…how old are you?” She looked at him.
    “ Twenty-five…” he answered.
    “ Somehow, I didn’t picture you with brothers or
sisters.”
    “ Well, I had both, but the rest of them got killed.”
    “ Killed…how?” Riley’s eyes widened.
    “ They called themselves White Knights, they go about the night
killin’ black people. My two brothers tried to run and escape them,
but they shot them down, in the back; they hung my pa, kidnapped my
ma, and my two other sisters…well, they eventually killed them
too.”
    “ White Knights, must be what I heard tell of the Klan? Least
ways that’s what they called themselves.” Riley’s mouth flew open.
“I never understood what that was about, but I did see a hangin’
once. And I don’t care to see another either. But why do they pick
on black folks, do you know?”
    “ Don’t want them takin’ over the land or the vote for one
thing. Don’t like them because of their skin color for another.
Anyway, they hung my pa, kidnapped my ma, killed my brothers and
raped and killed a couple of other sisters. I was the baby of the
family. I was fishin’. When I heard ‘em comin’ I hid out in the
woods. Hattie…she waited ‘til they weren’t lookin’ and
escaped.”
    “ Oh
Sam, I’m so sorry…” Riley put her hand on his. “That must have been
a hard time for you and your sister.”
    He glanced
down at their hands and she removed hers. “It was. It was a long
time ago…”
    “ Didn’t realize you had family, Sam. Guess I just figured you
were alone. Where does your sister live?” Riley asked, taking the
peach.
    “ She lives with the Shawnee, up north a ways,” Sam said
flippantly.
    “ Why does she live with them?” Riley asked, her curiosity
obviously getting the best of her. “I mean, I never heard tell of
black people living with the Indians.”
    “ Lots do these days. Only place we can live like equals. People
don’t have to live in shame there, and can love who they want.
There are many that live with the Cherokee Nation. Belong there,
they say. But Hattie is married to a white man, and the Indian camp
is the only place they could live together in peace as a